Friends
by starpalimpsest
Summary: They were never friends. Not quite.


School: Hogwarts

Year: 4th Year

School: Hogwarts

Year: 4th Year

Prompts:

Main: [Platonic Pairing] Severus Snape and any Marauder

[Spell] Impedimenta

Story Title: Friends

Warnings: Heavy swearing.

Wordcount: 2945 (before AN)

FRIENDS

1976

I

If Severus was being completely honest with himself, one of the many reasons why he had become so awfully close with Lily Evans was probably because she was the first (and at the time, only) person who looked at him and saw not the useless being his father had told him he was all those years, but the boy he could be if he just began trying to really live.

Lily Evans gave him a whole new purpose to live. She showed him that life was actually worth living for and that it wasn't all tragic endings and never-ending disappointments. If only for that, he would be forever grateful to the kindness she had shown him all those years ago.

Lily Evans was no longer his friend, however. The green eyes that used to be so full of life and happiness once upon a time were no longer there. She flinched away at the sight of him as if he was a bitter memory she now longed to forget. Like she no longer wished to remember the fact that they had anything to do with each other once upon a time. They were no longer friends. With one single mistake he had made in that moment of a pure weakness that fateful day, Severus had ushered them into a nothing.

Severus still remembered the look upon her face when he'd thoughtlessly chosen to say those words that would forever change everything between them; the way she had flinched away with a look of a pure betrayal evident on her face, how she'd shaken her head in the disbelief as she had stalked away from them, snapping back at everyone that crossed her path on the way back to the Gryffindor Tower. Severus Snape feared he would forever be regretful of how he had managed to ruin them with that single choice.

"Snape?" It was Remus Lupin standing tall and awkwardly by the front door of the Astronomy Tower, gazing up at him somewhat sheepishly from the corner of his eye. Severus couldn't even begin to imagine what the other boy wanted with him now after every little thing he and his troublesome friends had done to ruin his life so completely. "Look, I do realize I am probably the last person you would wish to see right now which is completely reasonable after what happened the other day, but I wanted to apologize for my actions. And I do know that I don't have any right to ask for your forgiveness after everything I've done or even make you listen to me apologize, but I've thought that I could at least try making things better between us. We all deserve that chance, don't we?"

Truth to be told, Severus Snape hadn't been expecting that. "Why?" He spat out the words with great difficulty, glaring at him from across the Tower with his heart throbbing in his chest achingly from all the pain and suffering we've gone through these past few days. "Why apologize? You've been fine enough without having to apologize for your actions these past few years? What makes this particular incident any different?" But of course, he knew what was different this time far too well. They had taken a step way too far in their tormenting of him. Even for them, that had been a new low. And if only to ease the guilt he must be feeling inside his chest, Remus Lupin wanted to do the right by him.

"Because I could have — should have stopped them the other day before things went a step way too far, and took a major turn towards worse, but I didn't. I left them to their devices, let them torment you until it was far too late to change anything. And I would be forever regretful of those decisions I have made that day."

"Then, why did you?"

Remus Lupin gulped his throat somewhat anxiously as if those next words he was about to say felt forbidden on his tongue. "Because I was far too afraid of what would happen were I to act upon my feelings, to do what I think is the right choice for once in my life. I feared if I were to stop them from doing anything harmful, I would lose them."

Severus Snape simply glanced at him from the corner of his eye, "If you are so afraid, maybe you should find better friends then."

Remus Lupin merely grinned at him in the reply, "Maybe." He agreed. "For what it's worth, I am deeply sorry I couldn't have stopped them before the damage was done."

"Me too, Lupin." But there really was no use on wasting his time wondering about the what-ifs of the world. It would only end up making him feel far more miserable than he already was. "Me too."

II

Since that fateful day back there in the Astronomy Tower, there was some sort of a truce formed between them. They weren't quite friends, but they weren't quite enemies either. They were something in between. He wasn't certain how he felt about this particular change in their relationship, however.

On one hand, it felt easier now that he had one less person to resent. On the other, it was simply far too annoying how Lupin would sometimes sit down next to him in the library like he actually thought they were now on friendly terms just because they were on a truce. Like honestly, he really didn't wish to bother telling exactly what he thought about that book he had read — "What did you think of Hamlet?" — or that essay Professor Slughorn had assigned them to write down.

It simply wasn't worth the effort.

And Severus Snape was once again reminded once again why exactly he loathed having to attend those parties he was forced to attend once again, having been stuck in one due to series of unfortunate events at the moment — mostly because Rodolphus had dragged him along with Black in the tow and now both of them had disappeared somewhere in the crowd, leaving him to fend for himself like they actually thought he knew how to behave in such situations. Which was unfortunately completely false in the most pathetic way.

There was a very good reason why Severus Snape usually didn't do parties. Because he tended to act all awkward nerves and anxious smiles the entire time. He wasn't like Lestrange who would just end up pissed drunk by the end of the day. Or like Black who always ended up surrounded by the people who wished to impress him within the first few minutes upon his arrival because apparently being born into a family like the Blacks came with such baggage — and was that Lily he was talking with there? Since when were they on the talking terms? Since when did they have any sort of a relationship? Much less one where she was allowed to touch his arm like that? Wonders never ceased, it seemed.

"Are you having a fun time?" Remus Lupin somehow magically appeared in front of him, holding a can of something in his hand.

Severus glared at the other with an unimpressed look on his face, "Do I look like I am having a fun time?" He pointed at himself with a swift move of his hand. "What are you doing here anyway? Don't you have friends to be with."

Lupin merely shrugged his shoulders carelessly, "Didn't feel like being around them since, you know, James is trying to restrain going out there to the crowd and murder Black 'cause if he did somehow manage to do that — look, I love the guy like a brother I never had, but he isn't much of a duelist — Sirius would be really upset with him for having at least attempted to murder his darling little brother for like, forever."

"There's one rule between them, you see. Only Sirius is allowed to make fun of Regulus because that's just how brothers work, apparently, which I think is really fucking weird, if anybody asks me. But I don't know. I'm an only child. So, I really have no bloody idea how that shit works between siblings. But then again, those brothers aren't exactly normal either. So I probably shouldn't think their relationship is anything like a typical sibling relationship. I mean, Sirius pushed him into the cold water near winter season that one time in our third year. And last year, Regulus made rumors that his brother is actually a gay in the closet as a joke which resulted in the whole disaster with Martin confessing his feelings to him that Sirius didn't find at all hilarious the same way his brother appeared to have. And I am rambling. Why am I rambling?" He then glanced at him with a sharp turn of his face, "Do you perhaps want to get out of here? I literally cannot stand to be here a minute longer."

"Where do you wish to go?"

Remus grinned at him wickedly right then, "Are you feeling up for a night of fun?"

For some reason he couldn't yet understand, Severus Snape felt very afraid indeed.

And rightfully so.

Since in the next few hours he would find himself somehow being dragged onto the previously closed library doors to steal a book from the restricted section — "Come the fuck on, Snape, don't you have any sense of an adventure?" — but despite what he would later claim to Lupin, later on, it had been the most fun he'd had in the ages.

If he'd stayed back there at the party, Severus had a feeling he would just end up being either taken for a charity case by Black — and he loved his charity cases not because he was actually a gentle-hearted boy deep inside his heart or something bullshit sounding thing like that, but merely because he was a manipulative little asshole who always had some sort of an ulterior motive behind most of his actions — which really wasn't something he would have fancied because of the mere fact that discounting the one and only Alexander Scamander, it was quite rare Regulus was actually genuine with anyone or forced to spend the night drinking away with Lestrange.

Compared to all of those, stealing a book from the library sounded quite like a dream come true.

III

There was an unspoken mutual agreement made between them after that night. They would meet somewhere in the school a few times a week and just sit down to talk about whatever that crossed their minds, be it Lupin's constant annoyance over Black's habit of leaving his things laying around everywhere in the dorm or Severus's difficulty in trying to adapt to a life without a certain redhead there to support him at the end of the day.

"I know I must've apologized like thousands of times after the incident, but-"

Severus had no wishes to hear his apologies, however. "Then save your breath," he merely told him as he closed shut his book, leaning against the side of the library chair. "Your apologies are going to change nothing regardless of how many times you tell them, Lupin. So, the best thing for us to do right now would be to try moving past the event."

Remus gave him a small, reassuring smile. "How do you really feel about the whole thing? Be honest with me here."

Severus sighed under his breath tiredly, glaring at him from the corner of his eye, "What do you want me to say, Lupin? To tell you how much I miss her every day, how much time I spend wondering what would've happened if I just made a different choice that day? Like I've already told you, it's just pointless. It would only serve to further dig me into a deeper hole than I already am at the moment. And I don't know about you, but I cannot have that."

"Sometimes, talking to the others can help."

Severus chuckled under his throat with a dry, bitter sound. "Have you been talking to Lily?" He asked. "Because you sound just like her."

He shook his head due to the bitter memory that filled his head — a small, red-haired girl standing down the mountain with a sweet, sunshine-like smile on her honey-like face — willing to shake the memory off his thoughts before it went into a deep, dark place he didn't wish to even begin thinking about. "Besides, I was never that good into this whole talking thing. Just ask Lily. I was a full-blown nightmare that one time she tried to get me to talk about my feelings."

Remus leaned closer to him from across the library table, a knowing smirk on his face. "Why don't you try me?" He asked. "Who knows? I might just surprise you."

He shook his head stubbornly in the response, "Look, I do acknowledge the fact that we are becoming sort of friends but we are not as close for me to be comfortable enough to start spreading all of my deepest secrets to you right now."

Remus shrugged his shoulders casually. "Suit yourself." And then looking at each other for the last time in the eye, they both went back to their respective works. Or at least, he had thought they did. "But please tell me you would at least consider telling me?"

Severus closed shut his eyes tiredly, "Deal."

IV

Severus fell down on his back on the hard ground, cursing under his breath, Black's familiar dark eyes blinking at him quite smugly from across the yard. He was saying something to him with Potter standing tall with an amused look on his face, but Severus couldn't really hear any of what he was saying over the simple, unarguable fact that Remus Lupin was standing right over there, doing absolutely nothing. Once again.

Remus Lupin had apologized for his inability to interfere when his friends that fateful night. And like some simple fool who just refused to learn from any of his mistakes, Severus had let a part of himself believe in his false apologies. And because of that mistake he had made in the moment of pure sorrow and tragedy, he had let him inside when he should have known way better than that. There was a very good reason why he had let so few people inside throughout those years.

He shouldn't have forgotten his own rules so carelessly like that. And now, he was paying for that mistake.

V

"If you could just listen, Severus-" It was the first time Remus was calling him by his name and wasn't it just simply ironic how he was only calling him by the name when their friendship — were they even friends? — was on the bridge of being nearly over? "You would know I've had no choice-"

"You had a fucking choice, Remus! You could have stood by the words you've told me that night. You could have not chosen not to lie to me so shamelessly like that. But guess what, asshole? You fucking didn't. You chose differently."

Severus could feel the anger brewing inside his chest even as he breathed deep, felt the rage that ran through his skin every time he looked at this boy whom he had trusted with his heart, with his own being. He had trusted him, and he had been betrayed. And he only had himself to blame for that mistake.

"Severus-" Before Remus could breathe another word, Severus had already drawn his wand out of his pockets, "Impedimenta," and Remus' movements slowed down as he stared at him in the disbelief from across the dark hallway of the castle. "Goodbye, Severus." And then he stalked away from him, his feet feeling oddly heavy against the ground.

1993

I

Severus Snape had chosen to fight for the dark lord side because of a series of events that had all shared one thing in the common. They all had something to do with his decision to throw everything away and join the Dark Lord's side. And maybe he should have thought more, — considered more; it wasn't like he was trying to excuse his own reckless actions, but he had been a teenager who only had his housemates to rely on who were — let's admit it, not the nicest lot to hang out with. So, really, it wasn't that surprising to find out he had turned out the way he had.

"Snape, can we just please for the sake of Godric, just let bygones be bygones? We aren't teenagers anymore." Remus Lupin was telling him but all he could think about at that moment was the look on Remus's face as his so-called friend continued their shameless taunting of him. It was a memory he could never quite bring himself to remember.

Harry Potter may be quite a nuisance to deal with — he would forever stay content in the knowledge that the boy's father hadn't been Lily's first choice, however — but it was Remus Lupin who brought him the pain of betrayal during the sleepless nights.

"Never." He sneered at him with a pointed look on his face as he turned on his heel and stalked off with a dramatic huff of his dark robes.

"We used to be friends once, remember?"

Severus stopped on his tracks, gulping hard under his throat. "No, Lupin." He merely said. "We were never friends." And then he walked away with his chest thumping loudly in his chest, willing himself as far away from him as humanly possible.


End file.
